Satellites
by Satellites on Parade
Summary: Assorted stories for Young Justice by yours truly, specifically ones requested on Tumblr, that are too short or too random to be posted as regular, independent stories on here. Sometimes there are pairings, sometimes not. Ratings vary.
1. Duna

**Hi, everybody! This is where I'm going to be posting all of the YJ fic requests I fill unless they meet a certain word-count requirement (2k or over). These are pretty much all from Tumblr, but I am _always_ game to get prompts and requests on here, too. If you've got one, shoot me a PM.  
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**I really, really loved this request when I saw it, and I'm sorry that I kind of ran away with it and made it less about the specified maneuver and more about Kaldur and Artemis's friendship. I suppose this can be read as slightly shippy to the squinting eye, but I didn't intend it to be that way.**

**_Zuei_ is Atlantean simply for "of." I used this to describe those… sword things that Kaldur uses, as I saw them as an extension of him rather than a weapon.**

**Requested by solati on Tumblr.**

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><p>When Kaldur was a boy, he was taught that to exist in the water is to be a part of it, and not a separate being. The sea is an enveloping, embracing mistress who allows no strays, and she ought not to be struggled against as though she is an opposing force.<p>

The first time he came to the Surface, his king showed him a river that flowed into the waters from which they had come, and there were fish moving through it, flashing with speed in the sunlight. Kaldur had first thought that the fish were swimming, but his king told him that they were not: they were merely being carried, and the only way to follow or catch them without disrupting them was to be carried with them. Kaldur did not understand at the time. Now, he thinks that maybe he does.

When Kaldur moves, he allows his tattoos to carry him, the same way water carries its inhabitants. He breathes slowly and deeply, and oxygen is strange and heavy, but he does not allow it to be an anchor. He is a bottomless ocean, and when he brings forth his _zuei_ – which are not so much weapons as they are extensions of himself, cool and incandescent currents rushing through his arms – he pretends that he is beneath the surface and being lifted and let down again by the sway of his home, and even gravity in all of its harshness cannot keep him from surging and sweeping in battle, silent and calm like the world where he was born.

He has come to realize that his Team does not fight or move through their world in this way. They are grounded, and set in their ways like stones, and when they move they are similar to Surface things, weighted and stifled. Sometimes he feels sorrow for them, for how must it feel, knowing that one cannot be _carried_ as he is? How must it feel, knowing that all movement must be forced, as though if they do not keep themselves standing at all times, they will collapse?

There are moments, however, when he doubts their fixation to the ground – brief, brisk moments that he wishes to gulp down and turn to life within his chest, as though it will make them last without end.

M'gann, when she truly flies – with no destination or direction – is light and tranquil like the surface of a lake in the stillness of moonlight, and he can feel the way the air around her grows fluid when she decides she no longer must continue the illusion of breathing. Superboy leaps into the air, and he does not know when he will touch the ground, and in these instants of feeling lost and adrift, he becomes one with the belly of the skies that he touches. Wally allows himself to _run_, to run without stopping or inhaling, and Kaldur feels no resistance between his and Wally's tides, for the boy is being carried not only by the world around him, but by his own love for senseless, fearless movement. Robin is an acrobat, a fluttering, silent creature who dwindles in the air and slips through the shadows like late-night fog. When he leaps and backflips, he knows no gravity nor limitation, and he soars, just as the gulls soar with the waters even though they do not swim beneath them. And Artemis, when she does not permit the cumbersome entrails of her past to anchor her like a carcass to the ground, is the most weightless of them all, so weightless and so _carried_ that she closes her eyes as she tosses herself through the air. There is something, though, that Kaldur can sense – an inescapable bitterness that causes her to whip around, lashing and slicing through her surrounding aura with a virulency he dares not try to understand.

Kaldur is stunned by the radiant agility of his Team, when they choose to grant themselves the ability to embrace it.

He has created movements – maneuvers – with all of them. He teaches Artemis how to suppress her rancor in battle to allow herself to move as though she is almost Atlantean in her concentrated, spellbinding grace. He is proud of her, for she glides as though she is a creature of the deep and uncharted waves, mysterious and unforgiving. He is proud that Artemis is able to forget her regrets and become the sea, and he is glad that she reminds him of the world he left behind when he came to the Surface. He tells her stories of his youth in Atlantis, and she listens with attentive fascination, and it feels pleasant to recount the mysticism of his life with someone who will hear him without instead hearing the inscrutable foam of the beaches. Artemis teaches him to laugh and to not be afraid, and he teaches her to smile and to repent of nothing that will drag her to the floor.

The two create a maneuver for their battles and he calls it maneuver seven until he can think of a more original name. They do not touch in any way, but they move in tandem, all of their attacks distant and serene, and when they punch and kick and jump, they do so with the delicate liberation that comes with being underwater. They are two mirror images, creating the same movements, and sometimes, when Kaldur looks over to his left and sees Artemis copying him with her sinewy grace and subdued empathy, he does not feel alone, for the ocean has touched another – and this mutual touch will connect them, just as the horizon connects day and night.


	2. Conundrums

**Requested by smartcookie11 on Tumblr. She wanted something in which Artemis tried to get Robin to take off his mask, and whether she succeeded or not was up to me. **

**Oh, boy, a pairing I've never written before! Actually, uh, I have never written _anything_ but Wally/Artemis before, but this was super fun. I wholeheartedly support Robin having a kind-of crush on Artemis but being snapped out of it by BABS.**

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><p>It was simple, really. She wanted to see his face.<p>

That was an adequate enough reason, right? And anyway, what were the chances that she knew the name attached to the face in real life? Next to nothing. She wouldn't be threatening his identity in anyway. She just wanted the face. Not the name, not the past, not the address or the school or the birthday – just the face. It wasn't too much to ask at all.

He disagreed.

"Artemis, you _know_ about protocol," he told her in a voice taut with exasperation. "You _know_ that if I reveal my identity, my position as Batman's sidekick will be compromised. And after it's done being compromised, it'll be, you know, _taken __away __from __me __forever_, but no big deal!"

She sighed.

"You don't have to _reveal__ your__ identity_," she insisted, throwing her arms out. "I just want to see your _face_. Unless your face is a giant info sheet or something, there isn't going to be a problem."

"You don't know that," he replied evenly.

"Yeah, I _do_," she riposted, crossing her arms and staring down at him. "Are you afraid I'm going to think you're ugly or something? What?"

"No," he flashed back, smirking. That mask, she noticed, was extraordinarily expressive in the place of eyes and eyebrows. "Quite the opposite, actually."

"Oh, and here I was, thinking you had class," she scoffed. "I'd expect something like that from Wally."

"Is there an opposite of opposite? Is it posite?"

"Don't change the subject on me, Wonder Boy," she snapped, jabbing a finger into his diminutive chest.

"I'm just asking a semantical question!"

"Of course you are. Aren't you always?"

She sighed, shaking her head.

"Okay. Look, you don't have to show me your face. I guess I just—" She paused, thinking, and her voice grew suddenly softer (Robin looked taken aback). "I guess… I guess I just thought that after what happened with the Reds, we – we got closer, as friends, you know; enough to see what each other looks like behind the mask—"

"I see _that_ on your end every day," he interjected good-naturedly, and she huffed.

"Well, you got to see the side of me nobody ever does, and that counts. I was scared."

"You? Scared? I find that hard to believe." Robin was teasing her blatantly and she had to admit that she found it rather sweet.

"I guess I just thought I'd be different now," she said. "To you."

Robin blinked, surprised by the sudden solemnity her tone had taken on. He supposed that, in all honesty, his view of Artemis _had_ changed, if the rapidly quickening pulse bursting through him at the moment was any indication.

There was something peculiar about Artemis. He couldn't quite put his finger on it. Maybe it was the way she looked at him; maybe it was the way she acted – like she couldn't quite decipher him, and didn't want him to quite decipher her. He had seen the way she would go at the punching bags with wild fury that radiated through the entire training room; he had seen the unreadable glistening in her eyes when she would stare out over the harbor; he had noticed how pleased she looked when she would do something good for the team, as though she was proving someone wrong by helping them – Robin; _Richard__ Grayson_ is a very observant person, for all of his selective interactions with the rest of the team, and if he was being honest with himself and with everyone else, he would say that he could observe Artemis for months and never get sick of it.

He hadn't gotten sick of it yet.

If Batman found out about what he was preparing to do, he would throw him out on the street. Kill him and have Alfred cook him into a nice gratin. Disown him, denounce him, and probably de-other-verbs him. (_What__ a __weird __prefix, __de. __Latin__ – __de.__ Off, __from. __Old__ French__ – __des __from __Latin __dis_. _Dis, __as __in __dissonant__ or__ disaster. __Aster._)

He would readily say to himself that what Batman didn't know wouldn't hurt him, but he of all people knew that Batman knew _everything_, always – possibly even before everything knew. In this tense, unexplainable moment, however, he found that, for the first time in his life, he didn't care about Batman, because Batman was an uptight grump.

"Don't," he muttered disbelievingly after a moment, "tell anybody. Ever."

She blinked at him, obviously having been letting her mind wander.

"What?"

"Just take it off," he snapped, feeling his cheeks heat up. She stiffened, gawking at him, which was frankly aggravating. "I'll turn away after a second so you'd better take a good look."

"I." She swallowed, frowning. "Are you sure?"

"Ugh, yes! Just hurry up!" Robin crossed his arms huffily, hardening his mouth with impatience, staring at the floor. After a moment, he noticed that Artemis had approached him slowly (well, he noticed straight away; he could feel her moving) and was now standing in front of him. He refused to look up, to let himself be reminded that she was an entire head taller than he was.

Her fingers lightly landed on the left side of his face, two of them skirting over the corner of his mask. He wasn't aware of it yet, but he was holding his breath.

She squared her shoulders, inhaled, and curled two of her bitten fingernails under the surface of the mask, and Robin felt a rush of cool air on his tightly closed eyelids as she pulled it carefully, cautiously off.

"Don't make me regret this," he said, and opened his eyes to look at her.


	3. She Walks in Beauty

**Requested by sevenfortyfive on Tumblr. "A little Wally/Artemis fluff/romance/what have you."**

**I don't own Young Justice or the characters therein.**

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><p>There is something about the way she moves in the darkness, the way that her hair rustles like pine boughs in the wintertime, the way that her shoulders catch ripples of moonlight, that Wally cannot help but notice.<p>

He is a scientist, and so all of his observations, he rationalizes, are for purely objective purposes – a long, tedious process to further understanding how a girl so infuriating and so smug can operate in everyday society without being murdered by everyone she encounters. He would take notes if he had paper, if he had a pen, but he never does. He supposes it's better this way – who _knows_ what he would write if he had the means to do so?

Wally notices that _Artemis_ has three syllables, much like _yesterday_ or _redwoodtree_. He notices that, when rainclouds taint the skies, her eyes are akin to the storm (he sees lightning in them, sometimes). He notices that when they have missions that stretch into the pit of nighttime, she stirs like a dancer in the muted obscurity; he notices that she breathes so softly that it would seem she does not breathe at all; he notices, as a _scientist_, that she is equal to one of the jigsaw puzzles with a thousand pieces that would preoccupy him when he was younger (but honestly, he won't mind if he never solves her, because she would look so lifeless framed on his wall with the others – a Paris skyline and the Grand Canyon).

He observes, offhandedly, _objectively_, that her fingers are slender and lithe and curl around her arrows when she shoots them; he notices that she doesn't need to squint when she aims, that she lets loose the arrows without remorse or pause, and that she sprints and backflips and somersaults and leaps like the hawks he races in the summer; and maybe, maybe, he notices that _when __she __smiles_ – oh, when she _smiles_ – it tints her cheeks a shade of afternoon, a quiet pink, and her lips shimmer, and her hair twists into a braid on Saturday nights, and her knees are knobby and smooth like rocks in a stream – then she glances over at him, and he glowers, and she glares (and there's a funny crinkle in her forehead when she looks at him that way).

The observations are gradual, like night ascending into summertime. And Wally occasionally takes notes of what he remembers, but they are not quite notes, for they have rhythm and rhyme. But don't call him out on it. All geniuses have eccentric methods, and this is his.

"_Wally_," she whispers to him through his communicator (she never calls him Kid Flash, never, unless they're in untrusted company). He notices – barely, just barely – that her voice crackles like a bonfire, that her tone is hushed and fathomless like fog rolling in to San Francisco (another jigsaw puzzle), and it's time to get down to business – time to store his observations like fireflies in a jar until tomorrow.

For science.


	4. Spare Time

**Also known as the second time Satellites gratuitously used _When __Harry __Met __Sally_ in a Wally/Artemis piece and everyone got exasperated with her.**

**Cloaks and Daggers requested a fic taking a look at what Wally and Artemis were doing before the beginning of "Revelation." This and _Conquer_ were the results. I don't normally do two fills for prompts, but I couldn't decide which one I liked better. Oh, well!**

**I do not own _When __Harry __Met __Sally_ (that belongs to the incomparable Nora Ephron and Rob Reiner), nor Young Justice. **

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><p>Wally doesn't know how it happened, exactly. The transition from belligerent loathing to inexplicable fondness was so rapid and indistinct that it seemed to happen over the course of one night (and don't forget, ten hours of sleep feels like ten minutes to him).<p>

He doesn't know how _this_ happened, either – how she wound up in his bedroom, sitting next to him on his bed, raiding Netflix via his Playstation. He doesn't know how his Friday evening turned into a session of elbow-rubbing with none other than the Harpy Supreme herself – the witch of the wicked – there are more insults, honestly, but he's tired out from his Physics homework.

"Are you going to pick something or not?" he grumbles, folding his arms, drawing his knees up as he tries to keep as far away from her as possible without teetering off the bed.

"Hey, this is a long and delicate process, Baywatch. Cut me some slack." Her tongue sticks out in concentration as she types various titles in the search bar.

Wally throws his head back in exasperation.

"Look, we could have solved this problem twenty minutes ago if you'd just agreed to watch _Gattaca_—"

"That wasn't on Instant Watch, stupid; now hold on while I – yes! Here we go." She moves aside to give him a better view of the screen and he squints skeptically at it. "You game?"

"_When __Harry __Met __Sally_? Are you _kidding_? Who are you and what have you done with The Wicked Witch of the Cave?"

She gives him a deadpan look before rolling her eyes and pressing play. He groans loudly.

"_God_, Artemis, _please_ don't make me do this."

"It's good," she insists bluntly, scooting back to lean against one of his pillows. "You'll like it."

"Oh, I'm _sure_. As much as I like gargling needles. Or playing dodgeball. Or being trapped in a burning building. Or, hey, being stuck in the same room as _you_! Or—"

"Shut up, will you?" she snaps, punching him hard in the shoulder. "This was your idea."

"My _idea_ was to make you repay me for the souvenir you stole. I didn't think you were going to hijack all of my possessions and force me to watch stupid movies." He groans. "I don't even want to _know_ what it's going to suggest for me now that _this_ atrocity is going to be in my recently watched queue. Probably – probably _Twilight_ or something."

She growls impatiently and crosses her arms furiously, scowling at the screen as the film starts. Wally glances sideways at her.

"You _do_ realize Robin's going to be trolling us to high heaven if he sees us next to each other on my bed watching a rom-com, right?"

"I'm not complaining," she retorts. "At least this time we'll have given him just cause."

Wally groans and slouches down into the pillows, chin jutting out in distaste.

"You'll like this Harry guy," Artemis cracks after a moment. "He's a sex-crazed pig with a terrible sense of humor. Two peas in a pod."

"I'm sorry; I can't hear you over the sound of how much I hate this movie."

"I'm sorry; I can't hear you over the sound of how much I hate _you_."

"C'mon, gorgeous," Wally says as he flashes her a smile (she grimaces). "You know I don't like it when you lie to me."

She rolls her eyes and shoves a hand into his face, pushing him off the bed.

–

"_I __took __her __to __a__ place __that __wasn't __human. __She __actually _meowed."

"_You __made__ a__ woman __meow?"_

"He made a woman meow?" Wally shouts, completely engrossed. Artemis puts her forehead in her hand. "How – I demand to know how this is possible! I need this knowledge _right__ now_!"

"The only thing _you'd_ be able to make a woman do is throw up."

"No, you don't even get it. I _need_ to know how to do that."

"Meow," Artemis says with no inflection whatsoever. "There. Problem solved. Life complete."

"If it's that close to being complete with you pretending, who _knows_ what kind of nirvana I'd reach if you were for real," he says with a pointed leer, and Artemis looks as if she's about to be sick.

"Ugh, you're disgusting. Every woman needs to file for a restraining order against you while they still have the chance."

"I can handle a few lawsuits in pursuit of making them _meow_."

"Is talking during movies a hobby of yours or did you just pick it up recently?"

Wally takes that, shockingly, as his cue to be silent.

–

"_I __love __that__ after __I __spend __the __day __with __you, __I __can __still __smell __your __perfume__ on __my __clothes. __And __I __love __that __you__ are __the __last __person __I __want __to __talk __to __before __I __go __to __sleep __at __night. __And __it's__ not __because __I'm__ lonely, __and__ it's __not __because__ it's __New __Year's __Eve.__ I __came__ here __tonight __because__ when __you__ realize __you __want __to __spend__ the __rest __of __your __life __with __somebody,__ you __want __the __rest __of __your __life __to __start __as __soon __as __possible_."

"Wow," Wally says in genuine awe. "Nice save, buddy. Hope she buys it."

Artemis turns her head incredulously to him, pausing the movie immediately. "_Buys_ it?"

"Sure." Wally shrugs helplessly. "I mean, do _you_ think he's telling the truth?"

He would be satisfied with the floundering expression on her face if he wasn't trying to be so serious. She's gaping at him and looks like some of the discolored dead fish he sees hanging from hooks in Chinatown.

"I," she blubbers, and then attempts to regain coherency. Her expression, Wally is surprised to note, morphs into one of unusual tenderness, albeit somewhat half-hidden. "I like to think so."

Wally blinks at her.

"Really?"

The snappy front is back, then, faster than he can run around the high school's track at two in the morning when nobody's watching. She folds her arms.

"Yes, Wally. I know you might find this hard to believe, but I like to think that not all men are thick-skulled, insensitive, lying cows like _you_."

"What would you do if that happened to us?" Wally asks her abruptly, and she stares at him dubiously, one eyebrow angularly raised.

"If… what happened to us?"

"If," he continues, "we were, you know, friends, and then we… well—"

"Don't go any further; I ran out of brain bleach yesterday and can't afford any more for a while," Artemis interjects adamantly, and in all honesty, she's almost afraid for him to finish what he's saying.

"Well, it's _possible_!" he insists, freckles disappearing under an ill-concealed flush. "I mean, we started out kind of like they did; you know, thinking the other was kind of a jerk."

"Oh, I'm sorry to have misled you into thinking my opinion of you had changed in any way," Artemis snaps, and Wally ignores her attitude completely.

"Things can… change," he says lamely, squaring his jaw. "I mean, I… I don't… hate you anymore, or anything. I thought you'd have made about as much progress as I have."

"Don't flatter yourself, Baywatch. I hate you." She pauses, taking in the vaguely hurt expression on his face, and sighs. "But I don't… I don't _hate_ you. You know?"

"Nnnnnot really," he replies honestly, and she huffs.

"It's just kind of – I guess I… I like—hating you." She shoots him a cautious, sideways glance, face turned toward the surfaces of her knees, and then shakes herself, playing the movie again. "Let's just finish the movie."

"_You __see? __That __is __just __like __you, __Harry__ – __you __say __things __like __that __and __you __make __it _impossible _for __me __to __hate __you! __And __I__ really __hate __you, __Harry. __I __hate__ you._"

Artemis can practically _smell_ the smirk turning up on Wally's face as the two characters in the film kiss each other.

"Oho_ho_. You _hate_ me, huh?" He makes pointed air quotes around the word "hate." "Hey. Hey. Artemis." She deigns to look up at him, and is frankly appalled by the lecherous expression on his face. "Hate me some more."

"Ugh!" she spits, grabbing the nearest pillow and swinging it mercilessly into his face.

"In all seriousness, though," he says, voice muffled behind the pillow – he takes it between his two hands and lowers it until it covers the lower half of his face. "What's your real opinion of me? I mean, right now, not retrospectively. In this exact second."

"Right now?" Artemis repeats, going quiet to consider this. She doesn't break eye contact with him (suddenly she notices that his eyes are _green_, greener than the hills in France), and after a time, he starts fidgeting uncomfortably under her intense stare.

_Wally_. What does she think of Wally? In all honesty, there isn't just one facet of her opinion of him. The whole thing is still a messy amalgamation waiting to be organized, and he's not making it any easier by throwing in a few new characteristics of himself in there for her to judge. She inhales, slowly, quietly, and she can feel Wally watching the movement of her chest and shoulders as the air pushes her up.

"Right now," she says carefully, "I think… that you're one lousy pillow fighter!" And, with a triumphant laugh, she brings out another pillow from behind her and slams it hard down on his head. He nearly falls off the bed, but manages to steady himself long enough to raise the one in front of his face and cuff her in the midsection with it.

"We'll see about that!" he cries, and Artemis almost notices a hint of anger, of frustration, in the way he smashes the pillow into her again, but the hint passes as the two dissolve into laughter and attack each other without strategy or care.

When Batman's voice cuts gruffly over the intercom system barking at them to report to the mission room in two minutes, the only thing on Wally's mind is not (not at all) how nice Artemis looks when her cheeks are pink and shiny from exertion and her lips are parted as she pants, but rather how much crap Robin's going to give him when they walk in together, begrudgingly, as if they'd just inadvertently run into each other in the hallway (of the story) and are making their way to the same room (ending).


End file.
